by Eliza Grace
It takes me time to move from the bay window seat to the wheelchair. I’m still getting the hang of it. Aunt Jen has picked me up off the floor more than once. I’m lucky the house is one story, that the doorways are wide—which is unusual in such an old farmhouse.
Despite everything, I love it here with Jen and I can’t imagine what would have happened to my mother’s family home if my grandparents had sold it rather than willing it to Jen. It was in poor shape and my aunt has put her life’s savings into restoring it the way it once was when she was a child—bright white siding, hanging flower pots screaming with irreverent color, hunter green storm shutters and even the rooster-shaped weather vane atop the roof. The only thing Jen hasn’t repaired is the fencing along the edge of the woods.
Several of the fence posts are crooked in the ground and the paint is peeling, but it is still white enough to be stark against the darkness of the thickly grouped trees in the forest. Sometimes, leaving something undone is a promise for tomorrow. It’s a stupid thing to think.
Finally, I am in the wheelchair, but I find that I do not want to move.
I hate to leave this room and reenter the world outside, because Jen has made my room so wonderful. It is my own little sanctuary.
The walls are a soft gray and the curtains are an ethereal, gauzy white embroidered with delicate ivory flowers. The chandelier above my bed is original to the house, but it has been restored so that the pale yellow flower sconces are sunny and re-glazed. Everything has been picked out with so much care—the paisley pillows, the pastel throw blanket, the faux fur rug that is so soft. I’ve felt the material a hundred times with my fingers, imagining how it would feel under my feet, imagining how my toes would sink into the luxurious fibers. It makes me sad that I cannot stand on it each morning after waking.
My room is the best room in the house really, the largest. Jen doesn’t want the room for herself; maybe she just feels sorry for me after everything.
When they were children, Jen and my mom shared the room—up until my mom was shipped off to boarding school at sixteen. My mother never explained why she was forced to go and Jen was allowed to stay. Maybe the room just reminds Jen too much of mom. Maybe it reminds her that her sister is dead. I find it comforting, because I can feel mom here. But I can also understand. I see the grief and pain in Jen’s eyes sometimes when she looks at me—how her expression goes blank because of how much I resemble mom. She’s called me Heather once or twice and she rarely comes into the room while I am here, like I am the ghost of my mother and seeing me in the room is too much to handle.
“Seriously, Tilda, come on!” Jen’s voice is louder and more insistent.
“It’s not like this is easy,” I mumble under my breath, trying to call up some anger, but I can’t really be angry, not with Jen. She didn’t have to give me a place to live, assume the burden of caring for a crippled niece, but she did. And she chooses to care for me every day. I half expect her to wake up one morning and have changed her mind.
As I begin to move toward the door, I feel a pressure in my stomach. A hook in my navel linked to a line that is desperately trying to yank me backwards—to the window, to the thing that is calling to me. I am connected once again. The call is getting louder. I’ve only been here a few months and each day the summons becomes more compelling.
My hands are already hurting from gripping the wheels of my chair and I’ve barely moved at all—just a few yards out of my room and down the hall towards Jen’s little art studio next to the kitchen. I know I need to get stronger, that recovery will be a long road. If I can recover. The doctors say there’s only a fifty-fifty chance that I’ll walk again. The beam that fell on my back was so heavy. I remember the sound my body made when it crashed into me and how it felt—that unsettling crunch as my body caved inward, the way the lower half of my body went numb after the initial sharp, excruciating pain.
My aunt is standing, still wearing her paint-covered apron and working on a large piece, the largest yet. It nearly blocks the longest wall. It’s a line of three robed figures and the only colors she is using are purple, blue, and white, but somehow she’s created such depth that the figures seem to walk off the canvas and come towards me. It touches me for some reason. I want to be one of them, a robed girl hiding me from the world.
But they are walking.
And I am not.
“Do you like it?” Jen says over her shoulder, not looking at me. “It’s almost finished.” She turns around, hands on hips, a satisfied smile on her face.
“Yeah. It’s nice I guess.” It’s such an understatement. I love the painting, but it’s so hard to be positive about things these days. “Why were you yelling at me if you’re not even ready?” I huff, rubbing the palms of my hands roughly to drive away the soreness.
“Because I can give you a rolling head start, take off my apron, put on my shoes, grab my purse and still beat you out to the car with time to spare.”
“I’m not that slow.” I grumble, not amused—but my aunt certainly is; her face is stretched in a self-satisfied grin.
“Don’t mumble.” Jen turns away from me and applies a streak of bright white next to a stretch of deep blue.
“I grumbled. There’s a difference.”
“Oh really?” She turns to me, cleaning her brush with a stained cotton cloth.
“If I mumble, it can be for any reason. Grumbling means that I’m mumbling because I’m unhappy, displeased, despondent or generally grumpy.”
“If you say so. Grumbling or mumbling or anything in between. How about we toss the ‘tude and get to your appointment.” Jen unties her apron, takes it off, and lets it fall to the floor. “How’s your bag before we go?”
Frowning, I feel the collection sack strapped to my leg. It’s still very flat. “It’s fine.” I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the catheter and waste collection set up, but it’s a fact of my life now. One of the many joys of paraplegia. Cringing, I place my still-throbbing hands on the wheels again and I make my way to the kitchen door—it whines like a dying cat when you open it, because Jen forgets to oil it, no matter how many times I remind her. I’d do it myself, but the spray is in a bottom shelf in the pantry—one of the only rooms in the house with a doorway too narrow for my chair.
We always enter and exit out the back, because that’s where the ramp is. Jen has taken to parking on the lawn by the ramp instead of the front drive. It makes it easier for me, but I always feel bad when I see where the grass is dying.
Things seem to die around me, especially things that I love.
And I love grass, as stupid as that sounds. I love the feel of it on my bare feet; I love stretching out on it beneath a warm sun, and I love the way it smells when it is fresh-cut. So, inevitably, all the beautiful emerald blades are turning brown. Because things that I love die. This is a fact that haunts me.
Baby Steps
The drive to the small therapy center across from Beverly Hospital always seems too short. It’s only a few miles. The farmhouse is only ten minutes or so outside Danvers Township, yet it feels like another world—rural, wild, and removed.
I enjoy riding in Jen’s compact silver convertible.
The top is down today and the warm afternoon sun is beaming down on me, warming me to my core. My aunt is debating trading it in on something larger—perhaps an SUV—but I’ve been begging her not to; the car is just so “Jen”. I’d hate for her to get rid of it because of me, because my stupid wheelchair is a giant pain in the butt for her to get into the trunk and then the trunk lid has to be held down with a bungee cord. Just a day in the life of a paraplegic caretaker.
Maybe a larger car would be easier, but I don’t want anything else to be my fault.
Like the stupid candles. It had been my job to turn off the lights and lock up the house. Everyone else had gone to bed, but I had to finish the movie, had to know what was going to happen in the end.
And in the end, I found out what happened.
In the end, my whole family had died.
I hold onto that last short conversation with my mother. I miss her so much.
“You’re doing great, Tilda. Just a few more steps and then we’ll take a short break.”
“How can this be helping? I’m not actually moving them myself!” It’s difficult to fight back the tears. The hard leg braces I’m wearing are jointed at the knees. I’m holding onto two bars, one on either side of me—which do nothing to emotionally support me, because they remind me of ballet classes and how much I love to dance—and Hoyt is behind me lifting and lowering the bars connected to the braces so I can “walk”.
Hoyt is such a “country” sounding name, although I think it’s Germanic or Old Norse and was originally a surname. It fits him well though. My regular physical therapist towers over me and he’s not exactly slim-looking, but not overweight either. Hoyt’s scrubs are so large on him that I cannot make out whether the bulk is muscle, but I think it is, and his hair is ash blonde which goes well with his brown eyes. His chin is strong, squared-off and when he smiles, his dimples appear and they make him seem like the perfect boy next door, the kind of boy that your parents would love to meet.
If I still had parents, I know they would like him despite the seven year age gap.
I love Hoyt’s accent too—it’s thick, but it isn’t redneck trash, just country and kind-sounding. It gives all his words a masculine deepness. I love it when he lapses out of his studied, perfect speech and says things like “ya’ll” and “darlin” and “ma’am” that really speak of his country boy background. I find it charming. Not like the city boy voices I was used to when living in the heart of Manhattan—all slick and sweet and too-often insincere. Of course… then there are also the ridiculous metaphors that leave me scratching my head (like it’s hotter than a coon’s hide and I’m finer than frog’s hair split four ways). He didn’t say things like that all the time—just another lapse out of his professional and practiced mannerisms. Those, well… those I could live without.
“You need to focus, Tilda.”
God, I love his voice. Who am I kidding? He can say whatever ridiculous thing he wants to; I don’t care, as long as he keeps talking to me. “I am focusing, Hoyt.”
“No you’re not. And you’re not going to get better if you don’t try. We can’t do it for you.”
“You don’t need to be mean.” I huff, staring at the ground, at my big toe peeking out of the hole in my striped sock. How embarrassing. I really wish I’d seen that before leaving the house.
“I’m not being mean, Tilda.” Hoyt looks at me, past my crusty exterior, and I know he can see that I have no desire to get better. I don’t deserve to get better. “It’s called tough love, darlin.”
There it is—a little lapse, a nickname he probably uses for dozens of patients, yet, it cuts me to my core and shines a light in the darkness. And he has said love, so my heart skips a beat—even though I know that the context of the word is not such that it should mean what it does to me. So, my heart skipping a beat makes no sense and I know that it is trite and cliché—to say that the muscle in my chest quits working for a frozen moment in time. But it is true; my heart does not move; it waits in anticipation, weighing the meaning of the word on his lips and trying to perceive it in the way I wish. But, just like I do not deserve to get better, I do not deserve to be loved either. So after brief seconds of consideration, I accept that the word is nothing more than a word with no ulterior meaning.
“You do, you know.” Hoyt’s voice is low and soothing.
“What?” I meet Hoyt’s gaze, feeling confused.
“I can see it on your face. I’ve seen that look before. Survivor’s guilt. You do deserve to get better. It’s not your fault—what happened. It just is. Life is funny that way. My gram lost Pawpaw after only four months of marriage, barely enough time to get pregnant with my pop, but she didn’t let it stop her. She just said “life happens” and she kept on living. She told me that every time something went wrong in my life. It happens, so just keep living.”
“My grandma’s dead.” There’s no reason to say this, but I say it anyways. I want to be unhappy and despondent. I want my walls up and he’s been trying to break them down for months. Because that’s his job—to repair my body, but also to nurture my desire to be repaired.
Hoyt doesn’t respond to my off-the-cuff comment about my grandma. Instead, he places a hand against the middle of my back—I love the feel of it there—then he gently pushes me forward and, at the same time, he lifts the pole connected to the side of the right leg brace. As my knee bends, I try to shift myself like I am trying to walk, but my body starts to fall forward and I grasp desperately onto the bars. Jen is on my other side, also attempting to keep me upright. It’s no use.
When I am crumpled on the ground, my cheek pressed against the textured rubber flooring and my eggplant-hued glasses cockeyed, I want to cry. Instead though, I start to laugh. I laugh and laugh and it’s so inappropriate that I’m sure I’ll die of embarrassment after I’ve finally quieted. Lifting my head so that my glasses fall fully off my face, I close my eyes and wait for my body to stop shaking with the aftermath of my outburst. After I am silent, I realize the entire room is silent also. There were six other patients in the large gym area of the rehabilitation center. Did I drive them away with my mania?
“Um… Tilda, are you okay?” Jen’s voice is drifting into my ear. She’s close, probably kneeling on the floor next to me. I’m so embarrassed now. God, I don’t even want to look at her. “Tilda?”
No. Nope. I didn’t just laugh like an insane person. I’m not here. My legs work. My family is alive. None of this is real. This is a nightmare and soon I’ll wake up in our row house. I’ll drive Toby to school like normal. He’ll be wearing his black cowboy boots, because they are the only shoes he wears, even though Dad and Mom bought him a fancy pair of sneakers with wheels in the heels for his birthday. After school, I’ll go to cheer practice or dance class. Mom will pick up Toby. We’ll have spaghetti and talk about our days. Dad will daydream about moving out of the city, mom will tell him to hush.
At night, mom will tell me her stories about the witches. She’ll tuck me in, brush my hair, and tell me to never do magic.
“Matilda, you need to get up, darlin.” I respond to Hoyt’s voice, not my aunt’s. I don’t even mind that he’s said my given name rather than my nickname (mostly because he’s followed it with that lovely darlin again).
“I fell again.” Simple fact. I just state it, not sad, not angry, no trace of my laughter attack left.
“Yes, you did. Which means you get the chance to get up again, because life happens.”
“And you keep living.” I murmur, my eyes still closed, my head now resting against my arm so that my hair falls forward to cover everything in a wave of black.
“Right, you keep living.”
“Fine. Help me up. But this really, really sucks.” Lifting my head and opening my eyes, I roughly push my dark locks out of my face and pick up my glasses. Even with the glasses, my eyesight is still blurry from the tears I shed while manically laughing. Placing my palms flat on the floor, I start lifting my body up in a half-assed pushup. My legs stay against the floor like useless, limp flower stems that didn’t get enough water in their vase.
Hoyt snickers and then stands up. “Yes, sometimes it does really suck.” Moving so that his feet are on either side of my body, he grips the wide belt with handles that is around my waist. I feel like I am up off the floor and standing in a flash. I haven’t weighed myself in a while—it’s a bit tough when I can’t stand up on the scale myself—but I was nearly 150 pounds before the fire. Yet, Hoyt has picked me up like I am a feather.
So his bulk is muscle. Most assuredly muscle.
His hands are on my waist now, only the material of my thin shirt between his skin and my own. I suppress the shudder that wants to run the length of my body. I like Hoyt a little too much.
“Ready to t
ry again?”
“No.” I’m holding onto the bars again—they’re smoother than the wheelchair grips and easier on my hands, but my palms still protest when Hoyt lets go for a moment and I have to hold all my weight to remain standing. There are other therapists and nurses nearby. In the beginning, I had to have three help me, Hoyt held the waist belt while the other two worked the bars to lift and lower my feet. Then my upper body got stronger and we were able to manage with only Hoyt and Jen as back up. I preferred that. Sometimes when female therapists or nurses helped, they’d spend half their time flirting with Hoyt. At first, it was just annoying, but later, I realized their carefree flirting made me annoyed and… jealous.
“Well, that’s too bad then.” Hoyt’s voice is nonchalant.
“We’ve been at this over a month now. It’s useless.” Muttering, I concentrate hard on my right leg. Hoyt is lifting the bar and he’s told me to focus and see if I can feel the knee bending. I can’t feel it. I’m dead from the waist down. It was so much easier in the beginning after the accident—when I was just trying to live, not live and walk.
“Now, is that grumbling or mumbling this time?” Jen pokes me playfully in the side. She’s been quiet since first asking if I was okay post-fall; I’d almost forgotten that she’s here.
“Mumbling. Need the definition again?” I grunt out, short of breath as Hoyt helps me take another faux-step forward.
“Don’t be a smart ass.”
“Takes one to know one.” I stick my tongue out at Jen and she responds in kind, the silver of her piercing peeking out and catching the fluorescent light for a moment.
“Well,” Jen laughs loudly now, throwing her head back in unabashed amusement. “That’s true enough. Your mom used to say—”